Every Wife's First Duty

"That they may teach the younger women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed." -Titus 2:4-5

"In one of his Epistles St. Paul gives the counsel that young wives should be 'workers at home,' signifying that home is the sphere of the wife's duties, and that she is to find her chief work there.

There is widest opportunity in the most fitting service for every woman whose heart God has touched to be a ministering angel to those who need sympathy or help. There are many who are free to serve in public charities, in caring for the poor, for the sick..., for the orphaned and the aged...

But it should be understood that for every wife the first duty is the making and keeping of her own home. Her first and best work should be done there, and till it is well done she has no right to go outside to take up other duties. She is to be a 'worker at home.' She must look upon her home as the one spot on earth for which she alone is responsible and which she must cultivate well for God if she never does anything outside. For her the Father's business is not attending... missionary meetings, and mothers' meetings, ...or even teaching a Sunday-school class, until she has made her own home all that her wisest thought and best skill can make it. There have been wives who in their zeal for Christ's work outside have neglected Christ's work inside their own doors. They have had eyes and hearts for human need and human sorrow in the broad fields lying far out, but neither eye nor heart for the work of love lain about their own feet. The result has been...that while they were winning a place in the hearts of the poor or the sick or the orphan, they were losing their rightful place in the hearts of their own household. Let it be remembered that Christ's work in the home is the first that He gives to every wife, and that no amount of consecrated activities in other spheres will atone in this world or the next for neglect or failure there." -JR Miller

After I read this passage in JR Miller's THE FAMILY, I was overwhelmed, to be honest. It caused me to reevaluate myself and my definition of "a keeper at home." You see, being a keeper at home is more than just keeping a good house, as the Message translation would have us believe. Are clean floors and tidy rooms a part of the equation? Of course. But being a keeper of the home is so much more that that. It is serving my husband, promoting peaceful attitudes, making sure that every facet of my family's living is cared for. It is guarding with a tightly woven filter all that enters the door. It is turning my home, in every aspect, into an atmosphere where Christ's love is expressed to the extent that His aroma spills through every crack and crevice of my home.

To accomplish these tasks and be a "keeper at home," I must first and foremost be at home. If God said that my life's work was to create for Him a beautiful painting, would I only work on it in the evenings after I came home from my "real" job, or on the weekends when my schedule was not so busy? Would I place my painting in another's hands, trusting that they could fulfill God's desire for me to complete it? Of course not! I would pour every ounce of my being into that painting. If the skill did not come easily to me, I would study and practice. I would be ever searching the painting for some flaw to correct, some detail to make it all the more beautiful. I would never stop trying to perfect the painting I was making for my King; it would be my life's work.

But God, in His infinite wisdom did not create me to be a painter, He created my to be a keeper at home. I realize that I cannot realistically spend every waking hour within the walls of my house, but I also realize that I must commit the majority (the first and best) of my time, thought, energy, skill and work to my home and the family therein.

Keeping my home is at the core of my being. How could it not be when it is the first work the Lord gives to every wife? If I forsake my duty as a homemaker by committing my first and best to other noble works, I forsake the very path that the Creator has purposefully lain before my feet. If I forsake my duty as a keeper at home, I blaspheme the word of God. May we all strive to give our first and best to the work God has given us to accomplish.